


Layers Are Important When You're Dressing for the Cold

by Princess of Geeks (Princess)



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Children of the Gods, Episode Related, M/M, UST
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-20
Updated: 2012-03-20
Packaged: 2017-11-12 15:32:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/492791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Princess/pseuds/Princess%20of%20Geeks
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jack invites Daniel home with him, the night Daniel comes back from Abydos. That might have been an error in judgment.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Layers Are Important When You're Dressing for the Cold

I hadn't meant to talk to Daniel that night about Sara and about the end of my marriage. I really hadn't. But he'd been reminiscing about Abydos, after I made some dinner and we settled in the living room in front of the fire. September was supposed to be nice and warm in the Springs, but this year it was chilly and a fire felt good to me. I imagined it felt even better to my guest. It was because I was thinking Daniel would have to be cold, having just come from the desert, that I'd decided to stack up the wood and light it. It was just an extra bonus that it gave me something to do while we talked. It was hard to sit quietly and meet his eyes. He'd lost so much, so recently, and he was in that wavering, shocky stage where you can't believe what's just happened to you. I'd seen it before. And I'd lived it before.

But even with all that, I knew what he'd gone through was different that my own losses and failure. I don't think any of the interventions for PTSD or grief counseling have a category for interplanetary kidnapping. By aliens with glowing eyes.

So he'd been reminiscing, and his wonderful funny stories about Sha're, about life with his new people, had come to an abrupt halt when he had one of those moments where it hits you all over again -- what's just happened. What's gone.

So to distract himself, he asked me the question. About meeting my wife. And he looked around the house as if he expected she'd been waiting somewhere, waiting to make an appearance.

So I told him. I told him what had happened to me, after our incredible journey; that I'd left him out in space with his new family and come back home to try to patch up what was left of mine. He'd inspired me. In a lot of ways I couldn't put into words at the time. But since then I'd had a lot of time to think.

I'd tried to come home to Sara, to try to make it right. And there was nothing left to come home to. She'd forgiven me, and then she had left.

But I didn't blame her. I really didn't. I had left first, after all.

Daniel seemed to understand.

"I'm sorry," was all he said, and he held my gaze for a long moment, and then he started peeling the label off his bottle.

I gulped my beer, and he sipped his. When I couldn't look at him any more, at his warm, lively face in my empty house, I watched the fire. The Winter Park house hadn't had a fire place. That was one of the things I loved about this one. Yes, a wood burner was impractical, like the tall glass windows. But I liked it. It reminded me of the woods around the cabin, and the rock fireplace there. No matter what, year in and year out, that cabin felt like home.

"I wanted her to have the house, though," I finally said. "I told her that. So I moved out; came back down here."

Daniel was listening intently, leaning forward. Maybe he wanted something to think about other than his own memories, just then. "So the two of you didn't live here before?" He gestured around the room.

"No," I said, and then I explained about Winter Park and my time at Lowry. "But there was no particular reason for me to stay in Winter Park, if my marriage was ending. And here in the Springs, there was still..."

I trailed off, gestured with my beer. If he didn't know what that first mission had done to reset my entire world, there was no way I could explain it to him now. But he knew.

"You probably wanted to be closer to the gate. For whatever reason," he finished for me, his tone thoughtful.

"I guess so. It sounds silly, since the gate was mothballed. But Colorado Springs seemed like the best place to stay."

I could have gone to Minnesota. Or back to Chicago; I had family there. Nieces and nephews. But I hadn't. When I'd gone home and found our place empty and closed up, found Sara's letter, I'd turned the truck around and come straight back ... here. Even though everybody else who'd survived the mission and come back to Earth had been reassigned. The gate was not going to open again. It was over; the secret kept as promised. There was nothing to come back to, any more than there had been in Winter Park.

And yet.

Daniel was nodding. He drank some more beer, apparently absently.

"A dead gate was still a gate."

He was reading my thoughts, still. He'd finished his second beer, so he stood up and pulled the first empty off the mantel, then glanced at the medals and around the room.

"I should try to sleep. Big day tomorrow. Thank you for bringing me here. I really don't...."

It stopped him then, all the memories of the day banging into him at once. I knew how that felt. He ducked his head. I was standing, so I stepped over and put my arm around his shoulders. It was impulse, but I guess it was the right impulse. He inhaled sharply, and his free hand came up and clutched at my arm. We stood there a minute. He cleared his throat; I knew he didn't want to cry, even though he had every reason in the world to, and God knew I was the last person to judge him for any emotion, any reaction he might show.

He said, "I can't figure out what those soldiers want with them. Why would they kidnap my family? And your airman?"

"We'll find out." I put my other hand at the back of his head. He wasn't looking at me, but off into the distance. His hair was silky and thick.

"You've got to help me persuade General Hammond to let me go with you."

"I don't know the man very well. Don't know what kind of persuasion will work. But we'll figure it out. And first we have to figure out where to go. Tomorrow." He was warm, like the fire, except his fingertips on my arm were icy. Yeah, he needed to rest. If he could.

I gave his head a little shake. I found I wanted to take hold of him, haul him in, hold him close. Comfort him. The way he'd comforted me, back in that sandstorm. When I'd lost everything, but he had no idea yet about what he was going to lose.

He turned then, and met my eyes, grief mixed with hope, and maybe I shouldn't have, but I did hug him, hard, and he hugged me back, just for a second.

"Guest room's this way," I said, and took him down the hall.

I'd long ago learned the trick of dropping off even before the scariest of missions, and so I had no trouble getting some sleep. I don't know if he did or not. But he was awake before me. I found him in the kitchen at first light, quietly opening cupboards, looking for coffee. His surplus coveralls looked as if he'd slept in them. Someone had soldered his glasses back together for him at the mountain; the wrapping he'd had on them when we'd first seen him on Abydos was gone. Somehow it didn't make him look any less like a geek.

He found the coffee can; I handed him the filters.

"I've got eggs; maybe some bacon," I said.

"Oh, I couldn't eat breakfast. No. Just some coffee. Coffee sounds good. I've missed it."

"Some toast then."

"Maybe a piece of toast."

He watched the coffee machine until there was enough for two cups, while I made myself some breakfast and him some toast. He took his coffee black.

He kept talking as we sat down and ate, and then cleaned up the abandoned dishes from dinner -- unconnected sentences punctuated by long silences, when his thoughts took over. But I could follow his disconnections, all the same. He talked about the implications of the cartouche he'd found and that Carter seemed sure we could access, speculated about the Abydos constellations and the way the gate symbols there matched only a few of the Earth gate symbols, and started to explain the translations he'd done between the hieroglyphic symbols on the walls and the simplified constellation symbols that the gates used.

When he was doing his share of putting dishes away, he noticed the little TV on the kitchen bar.

"God, a year or more of news on Earth. I have no idea what's going on here." He leaned on the counter, overwhelmed again.

"You haven't missed all that much, really. Don't worry about that. Come on. Let's find you some clothes."

I hadn't been given instructions about this, but I had seen for myself that Hammond seemed a stickler for protocol -- everyone on his staff except the gate room guards and the technicians had been in dress uniform. So I led Daniel back to my closet and pulled out mine from the back rack, wrapped in plastic. I hadn't worn it since the memorial service for the guys Daniel and I had left behind the first trip. But I figured I'd better wear it today.

And Daniel needed just about everything. Probably it would be good to stick with something warm.

He pooh-poohed the idea of a suit and tie -- I only had the one civilian suit anyway; hadn't had a need for Sunday clothes other than the uniform for longer than I could remember.

But I found him a cotton sweater and some layers to go under it. He eyeballed a pair of my jeans and asked me if I had a belt, winced at the boxers I offered him, but said 'thank you' all the same.

I was walking down the hall to get the box of my decorations off the mantle, so I could pin them back on my coat, and I noticed he hadn't thought to close the guest bedroom door while he changed. I didn't let myself stop walking. The flash of his entirely bare back as he held up the boxers and turned them back to front was more than enough warning for me.

I had a problem.

I vowed firmly I would make sure not to peek as I returned. I had the little box under my arm, and I started buttoning my cuffs. That gave me something to look at other than forbidden fruit as I walked by. "Everything fit okay?" I called.

"I think so," he said, and there he was in the door, dressed except for his glasses. He put his arms out, as if inviting a comment.

The cuffs of the sweater were a little long, and I could see the tail of the belt where he'd cinched it way past what I would have needed, but the length of the jeans was okay. He was close to my height, if slimmer built. I swallowed. What had made me grab the blue sweater? It made his eyes stand out even more than they did ordinarily.

"Looks good. I'm almost ready," I said, and went on back to my room.

"I'll just get some more coffee," he said.

"You do that," I muttered. It wasn't fair or right for him to hit me this way. And it was a sad little secret I'd better keep buttoned up. It was way beyond inappropriate on my part.

I was here to be his friend and help him find his wife. And I had a job to do; enemies to fight. I was a colonel again.

But I could let myself do one more thing, before I buttoned up my feelings for Daniel and shoved them way back out of sight, where they'd have to stay. In the hall, ready to go, I held my jacket for him -- the brown suede one with the flannel lining. He'd need it on the drive, and down inside the mountain it always always seemed chilly to me. Never warm enough.

He seemed surprised, but he put his arms in the sleeves and let me settle it over his shoulders. One quick squeeze, and that had to be it.

"We'll find her," I said. "Ska'ara too." And I opened the door for him, and took him out to my truck for the uphill ride back to the gate.

end.


End file.
